Altruism vs. Selfishness: Case Closed

David Sloan Wilson in Seed Magazine

The idea that evolution explains selfishness well and altruism poorly is so dead that it is beginning to smell. Can we please bury it now? Evolution explains the full range of behaviors, from extreme selfishness to extreme altruism. What evolves in any particular case depends upon the underlying environmental conditions, which are fairly well specified by now. No one should be surprised anymore by the raw fact that kindness exists in nature. The frontier of science has moved on to a more refined set of questions.

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